


the sun falls (and so do i)

by greyn



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, I apologise, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 03:09:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20987843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyn/pseuds/greyn
Summary: Catching feelings is kind of an inconvenience, especially when Ash Lynx got there first.





	the sun falls (and so do i)

**Author's Note:**

> hey there ! this is my gift piece for [@san3sane](https://twitter.com/san3sane) for the bf gift exchange ! i hope you like it <3

If you asked Alex when it started, he doesn’t think he could tell you, really. It’s all a sort of strange blur, but he thinks that it’s probably like that because of all the time he’d spent convincing himself that no, it wasn’t really happening, was it? He couldn’t possibly have feelings for Eiji. Eiji, who was kind and smiled nice and had soft eyes. Eiji, who was Ash’s something, everything, not his. 

So, yeah. He couldn’t tell you exactly when it started. Maybe it started when Ash looked at him really intense in Golzine’s mansion, and his eyes were burning and he’d said: “Alex, take good care of him. Never leave him alone until I get back.” 

He’d been kinda startled, because Eiji didn’t look very special at all - just a kid, really, and he hadn’t even been holding a gun. He didn’t look like he could use one very well if he had been, anyway. But there was something in Ash’s eyes that made Alex afraid to question him, even in his mind. 

So, really, he was just following orders. He did exactly what he was told, and he never let Eiji be alone. 

They spent a lot of time together. They ate together. They talked together. He tried to keep Eiji inside, because it was dangerous outside, and something about Eiji made Alex feel like he needed to protect him. 

Ash came back too soon. Or right on time. He doesn’t know anymore. 

Either way, Ash came back, and there was no need for him to stick around Eiji anymore, so he didn’t. He tried not to, because although Ash had never explicitly forbidden it, it was sort of an unspoken agreement that they wouldn’t push it.

And the way that Alex was starting to feel for Eiji would definitely be considered “pushing it”. 

Maybe it started then. 

It started again, and again, and again. 

It started when Alex watched Eiji shoot Golzine, it started when Alex watched Eiji and Ash curled together around a fire in the middle of the New York sewer system, it started when Alex watched Ash leave, again, again, again, and Eiji was left behind. It started when he watched Eiji leave, back to Japan, away from New York. Away from him. 

And Ash was still gone. How fucking cruel was that?

It got worse and worse as time went on. With every minute he spent with Eiji, he noticed something else - isn’t his voice something special? Sort of soothing, like he knew everything would be okay, and he wanted everyone else to know, too. Aren’t his lips so pink? Round and full, like a girl’s. Doesn’t his skin look so soft? It’s a nice color, too, sort of golden brown, and Alex thinks that maybe he wants to touch it. And doesn’t his hair shine and fall so nice? He’s not even trying, not really, it just looks like that, and Alex wants to card his fingers through it. 

It gets worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse. And he tries to stop it, because that’s not allowed, right? Eiji isn’t his to think about things like that. Eiji is Ash’s, in whatever way that may be, and there is no way he can ever be Alex’s, in whatever way he may want. 

And it’s getting hard to deny that he wants Eiji. 

Eiji left three days ago. Now, Alex is sitting in a hospital room, where the walls are white and the sheets are clean and it smells like sterilised death, and Ash is laying on a hospital bed with bandages around his stomach and an IV drip attached to his arm. 

He doesn’t like seeing Ash like this, sort of weak and vulnerable. It’s just wrong, isn’t it? Things aren’t supposed to be like this.

He’s starting to realise there’s a lot more to Ash than he might have thought before. 

Today, Eiji comes back. For Ash, of course. 

Of fucking course.

Eiji bursts in the room, and when he sees Ash, he stills. His arm, which was stretched towards him, drops, and he closes his eyes and inhales in shakily. He looks sort of like a statue, like this, all cold marble skin and smooth features. Alex wishes he could frame him. 

“Ash,” Eiji breathes. He hasn’t even looked at Alex.

Ash stirs beneath the sheets.

Alex stands. “Right. I’ll just give you two some privacy, then.”

Eiji turns to him, as if he’s just now realised he was right there. “Oh, thank you, Alex.” He smiles at him, warm warm warm, and Alex’s heart wants to leap out of his chest. He wants to squeeze it hard so it’ll stop. “I am happy to see you again. I am only sorry it has to be in Ash’s hospital room.” Eiji’s eyes turn sad and worried, and Alex wants to paint them so they’re nice and soft again. 

He can’t, though, so he just leaves. 

He’s fucked, isn’t he? 

o

He is. 

Ash stays in the hospital for another week, and then is released with a bandage, a pat on the back, and a few issues with the law that Charlie says he’s going to do his best to take care of. 

If Alex has learned anything, it’s that you can’t trust cops. Ash knows that better than anyone, so they’re moving locations. 

It’s a kind of cramped apartment somewhere on the outskirts of the city, and Alex misses the luxury apartment they’d had for a while, but he shouldn’t think about that, should he? Just like he shouldn’t think about Eiji, and just like he  _ especially _ shouldn’t think about how nice it was with Eiji in the apartment, baking pies and decorating the apartment all cute and shit for Halloween, and how nice Eiji’s laugh sounded when their first pie came out sorta goopy, definitely not a good kind of goopy, and how his eyes kinda shined when they pulled their third pie out of the oven and the top came out golden-brown, just like the recipe said.

No, he definitely shouldn’t think about that. 

He’s got a feeling something bad is about to happen, but not bad like ‘the cops are coming to get you’ bad, not bad like ‘you’re about to get what’s coming to you’ bad, but like ‘you are going to face the wrath of Ash Lynx’ bad. And, if he’s honest, Alex would rather take any of those other bads than the Ash Lynx bad. 

He thinks that maybe he hasn’t really been as subtle as he thought he was being, because he’s been the target of more than a few of Ash’s glares lately, and he’s starting to wonder if he has some sort of laser implants in his eyes, because he could swear up and down that shit actually fucking hurts. Alex wouldn’t say he’s a particularly cowardly person - far from it, actually, but he really feels like a goddamn bitch when he’s being glared at like that, like he just wants to curl up and keep on curling until he’s too small to see anymore. He tries not to make eye contact, but he can still feel something burning in his chest, and it doesn’t feel a hell of a lot like love. 

There aren’t a lot of people who can say that they can look intimidating when they’re glaring at someone from a hospital bed, but Ash Lynx is definitely one of them.

A day after Ash is released, he corners Alex in a small room that might be something like a study, but for now is just crammed with dirty mattresses and thin blankets. 

Alex’s heart rate spikes by about a thousand percent, and when Ash closes the door behind him, he thinks his heart actually might be getting ready to pack up and leave. 

“You wanna tell me why you keep looking at Eiji like he’s a fucking toy you can’t have?” Ash’s voice is sort of soft now, like he’s accusing him, but not like he’s, you know. As mad as he expected. Which is nice, but he kinda feels like he’s about to fall into some trap. 

Alex has to think for a moment, because how the fuck is he supposed to respond to that? 

“You already know, don’t you?” Lying would only make this worse. 

“I wanna hear it from you.” Ash sounds dangerous, and there’s nothing more terrifying than that. 

“Fuck, Boss. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to explain this without, without. I dunno. Whatever the fuck you call it. Incrimating - Incriminating myself. But I swear to god, I didn’t mean to do shit. I wouldn’t. Not to you, not to anybody. But especially not you. I’d never.” Alex’s voice comes out a little more panicked than he’d like, but he’s telling the truth, he is, he fucking  _ is.  _ “It just happened. I’m sorry. It’s just me, for fucking sure. He’d never look at me with anything even close to how he looks at you. I was just fucking stupid, and I didn’t expect anything even close to me getting fucking feelings for him to happen. I’m not gay. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know. But I swear, I didn’t mean to do anything. I definitely didn’t mean for this to happen. I swear.” 

Ash’s shoulders, which were high and rigid, fall a bit. Alex sighs with relief. For a second there, he was sure he’d have to say goodbye to his dick, and he definitely isn’t ready to do that just yet. 

“I know you didn’t.” Ash’s features sharpen suddenly, and Alex is afraid again. “You better not have tried anything. I won’t fucking hesitate to cut your dick off if you did.” 

_ Fuck. _ This is exactly what he was afraid of. 

“No, no I - I swear I didn’t. I wouldn’t. He’s not mine to try anything with. Maybe I hugged him once or twice. I’m sorry. It was just like, he was kinda looking lonely or whatever, and I - ”

Ash’s eyes flare up, and Alex could swear that they turned red for a split second (those fucking laser implants). 

“Please, Boss, you gotta understand. I know you do. He’s got that look in his eyes, you know the one?” Ash’s jaw clenches, and Alex pulls his knees together.  _ Protect the goods. _ “I swear I never went farther than that. He looked like he needed one and it felt like the right time. I’m sorry. I never did anything more. I won’t do it again. I’m sorry.” 

Ash breathes out, and his face twists. “ _ Fuck, _ Alex. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It’s not your fault. I know it’s not. Who the fuck am I to blame you, anyway?” Ash inhales, and smooths his face. 

Alex is flooded with guilt, now - not that he wasn’t before, but fear was really the dominant emotion for a while. He feels bad, bad badbad now. He wishes Ash wouldn’t have to deal with this. He’s wrong, anyway, it is his fault, he let himself go, and now he’s fucked, and it fucking hurts. 

“Who the fuck am I to blame you?” Ash repeats, quieter. “Fuck. Just. Don’t. Don’t do anything. That’s all I need from you. Just don’t. Feel whatever you want. Actually, fucking try not to. Just. Don’t act on it. Don’t make me do anything I don’t want to. And believe me, getting close enough to your dick to chop it off is the last thing I wanna do right now.”

Alex’s lungs are shaking in his chest. “I won’t.”

Ash nods. He opens the door and steps out of the room, but as he closes it on his way out, he says, “Thank you.” 

He says it sort of soft, and Alex has never really heard him sound like that before, not to him, and his lungs clench. 

“You’re welcome,” he whispers, but no one is there to hear him.

o

Life kinda sucks, doesn’t it? 

Things never go the way you plan them, good people get shot and bad people shoot, and you look at the wrong person the wrong way, and you say it’s not your fault, but you know it is. You let yourself look for too long. You let yourself think for too long, and now it’s too late, right? 

Yeah. Life really isn’t so great. 

But he keeps thinking and thinking, and he stands on their balcony, cause it’s a warm night, and maybe sunsets are kinda pretty. He likes the way the sun sinks into the horizon, like it’s being swallowed, and the light is absorbed by earth and city lights, pulled from the sky and leaving stains of pink orange red. 

A nice backdrop for his pity party, he thinks. 

God, isn’t he pathetic? Standing out here alone, wondering where he went wrong?

The air shifts, and Alex turns around. Eiji steps out on the balcony, alone, and Alex’s heart plummets. 

_ Why you? Why now? _

“Hi, Alex,” Eiji says, and his voice is soft, it always is, and Alex wishes he could cut his ears off so he wouldn’t have to listen to him speak anymore.

“Hey,” he mutters, turning back around to lean on the railing (and avoid looking at him). 

Eiji walks over to the railing and stands by him. “The sky is pretty tonight,” he hums.

_ Fuck. _

“Yeah.”  _ Not as pretty as you. _

They stay there in silence for a while, watching the sky burn orange, and the silence is sort of uncomfortable. Big, almost. Like they’re both trapped in a room and the walls are closing in on them, and it’s getting hard to breathe but they can’t push the walls back, they’re not strong enough. 

They’re not, though. They’re just standing together on an open balcony, and the air is fresh and the sky is wide and open. 

“Ash told me what you had talked about,” Eiji says, and when Alex looks over at him, with his heart on his tongue and something clogging his throat, Eiji is already staring at him, and his eyes have everything and the sun inside them. How does he do that?

Alex thinks that maybe Eiji’s eyes are a little too dangerous to look at for too long. 

“Yeah?” Alex says, because that’s all he can think to say. He wishes he could be angry at Ash, angry at him for telling Eiji, but it was bound to happen, right? He can’t run forever. 

He can really only be angry at himself. 

“Yes,” Eiji says, softly again. Too softly, Alex thinks, and it’s kind of unfair. He’s gotta know what he’s doing by now, and he’s still doing it. Really, really unfair. “I did not know you saw me in this way.” 

Alex laughs, sort of. It’s more like an exhale, because it’s not like he’s got the strength to laugh. “It took me a while to figure it out, too.” 

“I wish that I can help, Alex, but I do not know what I’m doing. I have … this has never happened to me, before.” Eiji sounds lost, now, and  _ fuck, _ Alex just wants to fucking hold him until he finds himself again. 

He looks away. “I don’t know if there’s anything you  _ can _ do. It’s not your problem, you know? You shouldn’t be the one to deal with it. Like, I don’t know. It’s just, I don’t know. Something for me to work out on my own. Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I don’t know. Cause problems. ‘Cause it’s not like this is helping anyone. So I’m sorry.” 

He glances over. He can’t fucking help it, can he?

He regrets it, fucking Christ, he regrets it. ‘Cause Eiji’s got that look in his eyes again, and he’s smiling sort of sad and his eyes are sort of sad and everything about him is sort of sad and sort of beautiful, like a painting. One of those dark ones, where the person inside doesn’t look happy or anything, just like they wish they could be somewhere else. 

That’s Eiji, right? Sort of sad and sort of beautiful. And Alex is way more gone than he could have thought.

“You did not choose this, Alex. I admire you, actually. Because there are not many who would have been like you. You knew it could never be, and you were respectful of that. You did not do anything I did not want you to do. You were perfect, Alex. You should not feel guilty.” 

Eiji’s words are hard to listen to, Alex is finding, because he’s trying to stop himself from feeling too much. That’s the goal, right? But it seems like Eiji is really good at making him feel more than he should, and the way he always knows the right thing to say is really becoming a problem. 

“I don’t know. It was my fault for letting it get too far in the first place. But it was hard for me to control, you know? You kinda just seemed really right, with all the things that were wrong. And it was nice to talk to you and be around you. You made me feel comfortable and safe and then it just… I don’t know. It just got out of hand. I tried not to let it get like that. But then it did and it’s still like that now and I just don’t know what to do anymore. Ash’ll have my cock if he sees me step a single toe out of line. Not that I intend to, obviously, but it’s hard, sometimes, you know?” 

Alex has no idea why he’s saying all this, it’s way more than he needs to say. It’s a little nice, though, he thinks. Something like - what’s that word? It starts with a ‘c’. The one that’s like, you’re releasing your emotions. That. It feels like that. 

“I do know,” Eiji says. “I know that sometimes our hearts can do things that we don’t very much understand. I know that sometimes our hearts can do things that we do not want them to do. And I know that sometimes, our hearts can do things that do not make us happy. I do not want you to be unhappy, Alex. Although I cannot feel for you the way you feel for me, I still care about you very much.” 

Alex really needs Eiji to stop talking. Soon. Because his words are too much and Alex is starting to feel tears gathering in the corner of his eyes, as if he isn’t fucking embarrassed enough already. 

And of course, because things just don’t really seem to go right for Alex, he doesn’t stop. 

“One day, Alex, you will find someone who will love you the way you love them. And they will be many times better than I am.”  _ Yeah, right.  _ “You will find your own, just like I have found mine.”

And, god damn it all, he can’t keep it in - so Alex starts fucking  _ crying, _ like he’s a bitch or something. Cause he won’t. He’ll never find anyone as good as Eiji, let alone anyone who could possibly be  _ better. _

How can anyone be better than Eiji? How, how, how?

“Thank you,” he says, and it comes out watery and gross and he wishes he could say something better, something more beautiful to match the way Eiji looks in the fading sunlight. 

He is beautiful, isn’t he? His vision is a little blurry from the tears that rim his eyelids, but he’s gorgeous, now, always, his eyes burn gently and his skin turns the color of caramel against the sun, and his face just looks delicate. Fragile, like it’s made from a really soft clay that won’t ever harden. It’ll just stay soft, forever, so if you press too hard you’ll leave dents in his cheeks and hollow dips in his neck.

_ Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.  _

He’s in love, isn’t he?

Fuck.

o

So, yeah. He’s in love. 

And to be honest, it fucking sucks. 

But that’s just the way life is, isn’t it? Love songs are only fun to listen to if you fall in love the right way. Love is only hearts and flowers and butterflies in your chest if you fall in love with the right person. 

Because love like this? It’s like getting on a train and realising you took the wrong one. It’s like not knowing when the next stop will be, and when you can get off. It’s like realising it doesn’t stop, actually, at least not anytime soon, and the train only goes faster and faster and faster and before you know it -

Alright. He’ll stop with the train metaphor. 

The point is, life could be kinder. It could, but it isn’t. 

So he’s stuck watching Ash and Eiji fall together, together. They eat meals together and Eiji makes Ash shrimp and avocado salad, and their shirts match and their eyes lock and sometimes it’s just a little overwhelming, so Alex goes onto the balcony, and Eiji doesn’t join him again. 

Alex goes onto the balcony, and he thinks of sunsets and Eiji’s soft voice and his soft face and his strange, sad soul, and he thinks of what it would be like if things were different.

He tries not to, but he thinks of what it would be like if Alex kissed him underneath the stars, he thinks of what it would be like if Eiji looked at him the way he looks at Ash, and he thinks of what it would be like if Alex took his hand and their fingers intertwined and Eiji’s eyes were bright on his, and he thinks of how impossible it all is. 

He thinks too much, maybe, and he falls alone. 

He’s not stuck. Maybe one day he’ll be able to pull himself out. 

For now, all he can do is stay for a while, until he can. 

For a long, long while. 

**Author's Note:**

> OOF , i feel like this fic is a lot different from my normal writing style (i hope i captured his tone okay) but i ended up really enjoying myself ! i wasn't too sure if i could pull off alexeiji bc it was a pairing i hadn't really ever considered before, but i lowkey fell for alex (and this pairing!) while i was writing it ,,, they're all just really good boys kshdkjfk 
> 
> but yeah! i rlly hope you all enjoyed <33
> 
> comments and kudos are lovely as always - come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/grey_x_green) or [tumblr](https://grey-x-green.tumblr.com/)!!


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